"And, I tripped a couple times. I don't know if you could tell. It was more something I could feel, but to nail it the way I did, even out of the corner of my eye, I could see my teammates standing out of excitement.

"And at that moment, I wanted to stop the music and get off, but I still had my whole program ahead of me."

Nagasu had landed triple axels in previous competitions, but never in such a pressure-packed situation as the Olympic stage.

She joined Japan's Midori Ito and Mao Asada as the only women to land triple axels during the Olympics.